Sterling Heights code enforcement officer James Bryant Sr., right, poses for a portrait with his son, police officer James Bryant Jr., on May 28 at City Hall.

Photo by Brian Wells

STERLING HEIGHTS — When James Bryant Sr. was going to college for accounting, he realized he didn’t want to sit behind a desk all day.

A friend of his that worked at the same firm he was working at was a retired police officer. It sounded interesting, so he switched majors and got a job. He spent three years as a cadet in Troy, then worked for the Sterling Heights Police Department for 25 more.

Being that he’s a first-generation police officer, he was surprised when his son, James Bryant Jr., decided to become a police officer, too.

“I didn’t know if I ever thought (he’d) do it,” James Bryant Sr. said.

James Bryant Jr. said he wasn’t planning to follow in his father’s footsteps, and he hadn’t been wanting to become a police officer since he was a kid.

“There was really no following in his footsteps,” he said. “I didn’t want to do it since I was a kid and he never really talked about work at home, so I really had no understanding or really even a basis on what he did all day.”

James Bryant Jr. was selling insurance and looking for a steadier job when he saw a posting for a job as a dispatcher with the county. Like his father, he didn’t want to sit behind a desk all day, but he realized he liked the idea of what the officers on the roads were doing.

“(I) decided that I wanted to work towards being on the road instead of being in dispatch,” he said.

When James Bryant Jr. joined the Sterling Heights Police Department, his father had already retired and moved on to work as the city’s code enforcement officer. While the two never worked together, James Bryant Sr. said he’s still proud of his son.

He said it has also helped him to understand the worry his parents had for him when he joined the force.

“I’m extremely proud,” he said. “Now I know what my parents went through. I never worried about myself, but I worry about him, so I know what my parents felt.”

Unlike the Bryant’s, Sterling Heights Fire Inspector Mike White came from a long line of firefighters.

“My dad was a part-paid in Eastpointe, and my grandfather on my mom’s side retired as a lieutenant from Detroit, so I grew up around it,” he said.

His son, Nick White, also grew up around it. He became a fourth-generation firefighter.

“From a young age, honestly, there was nothing else I wanted to do,” Nick White said. “I mean, other than playing sports, professional sports, which would have been awesome.”

While Nick White was studying nursing and playing baseball at Rochester College, he decided he was ready to go into the fire academy.

While his dad now works on the administrative side of the Fire Department, there was about a six-to-eight-month period after Nick White was hired where the father and son team worked on the same crew.

“It was a great time,” Nick White said. “We went on a handful of fires together, dealt with everything — medicals, car accidents, fires — and that was cool to me. That was the goal I had, to try to get into working for a little bit before he decided to retire or go somewhere on the administrative level where I wasn’t going to be able to work with him on the front line. So it was cool. It was awesome.”

Mike White said when his son first became a firefighter and was working with Waterford-Pontiac and was expected to cook for the department, he would test his meals out at home.

“In this arena, they can be pretty rough on you when you don’t put something decent on the table,” Mike White said. “You definitely don’t want to put a bad meal on the table.”

Mike White said it was exciting to see his son become a firefighter and work at the same department.

“It’s kind of a pride thing,” he said. “It’s one of these things where, you always want your kids and family to be successful and to see him get into a career that is going to have a good life … I was happy just when he wanted to be a fireman. He grew up around this department, so for him to want to come here, that was pretty exciting.”